The harp is the oldest known stringed instrument. The word “harpa” or “harp” comes from Anglo-Saxon, Old German, and Old Norse words meaning, “to pluck”. The earliest drawings of triangular-frame harps appear in the Utrecht Psalter, written and illustrated in the early 9th century. Though it seems from the evidence that the triangular harp appeared first in Scotland, it is reported by Geraldus Cambrensis in the late 12th century that the Irish were by then playing harps with brass, or bronze, strings. Replicas of Pictish harps are found on a sandstone carved cross at Dupplin Castle, Perthshire from the late 9th or early 10th century.
The earliest Gaelic term for a wire-strung instrument was cruit. By 1200 this term was also being applied specifically to the triangular harp. A later word used in Scotland and Ireland for the harp was clarsach, or cláirseach. The harper and reciter (reacaire) traveled in aristocratic circles, entertaining at the court of Celtic kings and leaders of clans. Their songs composed a library of unwritten stories that were handed down from teacher to student. Some of the songs were popular enough to be saved as manuscripts (for the lute), but most of the music was buried with the harpers.
The earliest drawings of triangular-frame harps appear in the Utrecht Psalter, written and illustrated in the early 9th century. Ten of the illustrations show figures holding harp-like instruments.
Manuscript illustrations of the 11th century show a more developed harp with a deeper sound box and a rounded shoulder at its junction with the neck. Harps found in Scottish stone carvings of this time have a similar shape. Pictish harps are carved on a sandstone cross at Dupplin Castle, Perthshire, from the late 9th or early 10th century.
Thus harps were of high importance in the early Medieval period.
Ogham is an early Irish linear script. It uses a central line and indicates letters as strokes on either side or passing through the central line. In its basic form it consists of 20 letters divided into 4 groups (Irish aicme) of 5 letters. The beginning letter of each aicme has only one stroke, the second aicme has two, etc. What differentiates each aicme is the type of stroke it includes. Two aicmes are strokes emerging from the central line and coming from opposite sides. The other two aicmes feature strokes completely through the central line with differing angles of the stroke. Various of these are shown in FIG. 1.
The antiquity of the system goes back at least to Julius Caesar, for he refers to it when he writes about the Gallic wars. Scholars, however, are divided as to its origins. Debate continues as to whether Ogham has links its roots in Latin, Greek, early Germanic or a number of other possibilities.
What is known for certain is that the usage of Ogham began in Ireland and that remained the area of its highest concentration. There are 369 stones extant that bear inscriptions in Ogham, they are in Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, the Orkney and Shetland Islands as well as Brittany. But, by far, the area with the most inscribed stones is Ireland. However, it is worth noting that all the places that Ogham stones are found are Celtic countries.
Most scholars agree that between the 5th and 9th centuries another aicme was added to the previous 4 aicmes. These are extra letters or forfeda, and these are indicated in FIG. 2.
Most of our knowledge about the alphabet comes from the 14th century manuscript known as the Book Of Ballymote, translated and published with annotations by Alexander Calder in 1907.
A feature of Ogham is that, in addition to its usage as an alphabet, it was used as a mnemonic and counting system as well. Each letter could also be connected to a particular word, a way to remember important information. In Linnogham, each letter corresponds to the first letter of an Irish river. A similar system is applied to remember famous fortresses (Dinnogham), birds (Enogham), colors (Dathogham), churches (Ceallogham) and so on.
Ogham was also used to count. In Damogham, each of the four aicmes represented a different type of cattle: bulls, oxen, bullocks and steers. And each letter of each aicme represented a number (from one to five) of the type of cattle represented by that particular aicme. There were Oghams to count cows (Boogam), bodies of water (Ogham Usceach), dogs (Conogham), deer (Osogham), boats (Ogham n-eathrach) and many others.
Since Ogham was used as a counting and mnemonic aid to assist in so many vital areas of daily life, it seems logical that it would also have a musical function. Music was extremely important to the ancient Irish and every musical system relies upon some organizing principal. Unfortunately, the Book Of Ballymote, which is our chief source for our knowledge of Ogham, does not directly link the two.
By the mid nineteenth century, however, scholars were convinced that there must be a correlation between Ogham and music. In 1857 the Journal Of The Royal Society Of Anitquaries suggested that three of the Ogham strokes were identical with musical signs.
By 1905 W. H. Grattan Flood, writing in his book, “A History Of Irish Music,” states that an Ogham carving known as the Bressay inscription “furnishes an early example of music scoring; an it is quite apparent that the inscriber regarded the ogham and the quaint tablature employed as one and the same.”
No scholar, however, could offer a key to deciphering all the Oghams in terms of musical pitches.